The Paradox of a Keen, Pulsating Desire

“Desire is the starting point of all achievement, not a hope, not a wish, but a keen pulsating desire which transcends everything.”

This quote from Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich outlines a very strong principle: The principle of desire.

Not just any weak desire that pops up every so often – an intentionally cultivated desire that “transcends everything.” You decide to do something, and you think about it constantly. Your mind fixates on the vision of it. It soaks into your subconscious, and you start to dream about it. You think about it when you’re doing anything other than working towards it. You can’t help but come up with creative ideas related to it. It becomes part of your core. It evolves into an obsession.

I’ve experienced this first-hand, and it’s incredibly powerful. A desire can do wonders when it becomes an obsession. When this happens, it seems like the only possible outcome is accomplishing your desire. No matter what the path consists of, the endpoint is nothing short of a certainty.

When you’re not consciously focused on it, your subconscious mind works on it. You’ve told yourself that that’s what you desire long enough for it to become a part of your reality.

You inevitably take action on it. You try different things, even without doing much conscious planning. Before you know it, you are much closer to the goal than you thought and you might accomplish it in a roundabout, unexpected way..

When I first found out about Praxis, I immediately knew I wanted to be a part of it. I knew I had value to bring to their business, and I knew I could learn a lot from being around those people.

I had no real connection with any of them, and no idea how to start. The desire to work for them became an obsession. It seemed inevitable that I would end up working for them, although I had no idea how it would happen or how long it would take. I didn’t know what value to bring or how to do it.

I tried for 5 months doing different things like recruiting and marketing to provide value for them. I failed a lot, and actually gave a negative impression in my unsuccessful efforts to help. Turns out it’s not a good idea to represent a company in front of their customers without letting them know first.

After enough failures, I gave up on my goal. I resolved to become a customer and told myself I didn’t want it that badly. I could do something else and just go through the program. But deep down, the desire was stronger than ever.

5 months later, I work for them. My desire was so strong that it was an inevitable reality.

There is a paradox here.

Had I not been driven by my blind desire for my goal of working for Praxis, maybe I could have found a quicker more efficient, less uncertain path.

It was only after I had “given up my goal” on the surface that it ended up coming to fruition. I let go of the constant obsession and decided to focus on myself.

Telling myself it was no longer my deepest desire was my way of letting go of the expectation of accomplishing it. It was still there, but I was no longer blinded by the power of the desire. It was hidden within my subconscious as an already-decided intention, while my conscious mind was freed up to focus on building my daily habits.

Naturally, this hidden desire still affected my conscious actions.

While desire becomes stronger and the more rooted with meaningful intention when you let it consume you, this can take away some of the practical and logical thought that goes into making calculated decisions.

Once you know what your definite goal is, it is no longer necessary to let it consume you every day. You can then maintain a healthy sense of detachment from your goal and from the outcome which will allow you to operate more confidently as you approach it.

You will navigate your way around the obstacles that stand in your way with a calm and cool sense of poise.

“Because he has no goal in mind, everything he does succeeds.”

A desire that turns into an obsession is a powerful thing. It commands you to act on it, and it seems to will its way into existence. Think and Grow Rich is riddled with examples of people who have accomplished seemingly impossible goals by simply letting their obsessive desire guide them.

However, once you reach the point of knowing that your desire is an obsession, and knowing that it is definitely something that you have set your intention to, and knowing that it has sunk into your subconscious mind, let go.

Let go of the outcome. Focus on what you do each day and trust that your actions will line up with the desire that you have submitted to your subconscious mind.

Often times the path towards our goals doesn’t make sense as we experience it. We can only connect the dots backwards, not forwards.

So, as we are moving forward toward our goals we tend to excessively worry because it doesn’t seem like we’re going the right direction. This is natural, even though we may be going the exact right direction.

In letting go of our desire once we’ve let it become an obsession, we are trusting our own ability in each moment to do what makes sense. Of course we will still mess up, and of course the path won’t be a direct shot. But that constant worry, doubt, and frustration will fade away as we move towards our goal, trusting that we will accomplish our desire lucidly, without letting it blind us along the way.